Mouse in the Library

The last month has mostly been helping Louis's mom get settled in and financially stable enough so she can start looking for a place sometime in January-ish. She'es much happier now than she was in Florida, for starters. That's mostly to do with not being alone or living in the house of her now deceased parents, I think.

Momma cat got returned to the neighbours around the 8-week mark. Kittens were litter-trained and weaned at that point, and her presence was actively hampering their interactions with the other animals in the house. Since said neighbours apparently don't believe in indoor kitties, she spent a decent part of November yowling outside any part of the house that had lights on. The kittens all but completely ignored her. We've been having to do some aggressive flea control on them. So far it's mostly contained, but I think we're gonna need to give them another flea bath shortly. This was another reason for showing Momma the door, as even flea spraying her nearly led to bleeding.

Stavan warmed up to the kittens very quickly after Momma left the house. At this point, he is absolutely thrilled to have such enthusiastic playmates. Drake is just now deigning to sniff noses, and is holding herself as being above such things as kitten games. Sadie thinks they're okay, as long as they stay out of her wet food. Princess (Louis's mom's Pomeranian) is slowly deciding that maybe they don't want to kill her and eat her after all. However, she is also firmly of the opinion that pouncing on her tail is Right Out.

Robin (white, grey, and cream calico) is a shoulder cat. And a lap cat, leg cat, small-of-your-back cat, elbow cat . . . you get the idea. She tends to curl up between my head and Louis's at night if we let her stay in the room. Her sister (dark calico) is much more feisty and active. She will, however, quite gleefully cuddle in your arms if it means getting in the way of your book or keyboard.

Okay, that's the kitty part of the update. Next post: Hormonal Birth Control and its Effects on Domesticated House Mice.

In case I never mentioned it before, I've always been lousy at keeping up with diaries and journals and whatnot. Especially so when life is going mostly smoothly.

We have (sort of) done the December decorating. We have a very small fake tree set up on a stool, on account of not having room in the apartment for anything larger. It still looks very cute, and it has ornaments and blue beads and silver stuff. It's in front of one of our bookshelves, the one that we nailed four stockings to. There's more blue beading draping from stocking to stocking, and lights strung around the shelving a bit above that. It's a very nice effect.

I have made caramels, and they are good. This is an understatement of vast proportions, but it does not do to let the entire world know that you make an addictive substance in your kitchen. I will be asking warinbear to cut the sheets later this week, because that's the only way they'll get cut as opposed to eaten outright.

The three of us, reana and darcsyde took Bear-Cub and Puppy Christmas shopping yesterday. JoAnn's, a half-priced bookstore, and Marshalls. With lunch out between the bookstore and Marshalls. Started around 11:20 and Warin headed down to Huntsville with the girls at 3:00. Uff da. Those girls have frickin' energy.

louisadkins and I have a chiropracter appointment later today. We also need to get some gorcery shopping done. We'll do one more grocery run on Thursday to get some of the more perishable stuff for Christmas dinner, and then we'll hole up in the apartment.

I'd almost forgtten how much running around tends to accompany this part of the year. -laugh- Ah, well. It's all good.

warinbear just called from the local hospital. He caught his hand in something at work. No broken bones, 3 stitches. Someone's coming here to get louisadkins to go and get Warin's car, and I think they're dropping Warin off here as well.

-fidget- -spaz- -fretfretfret-

He sounded fine on the phone, according to Louis. I'll see him in a little bit.

He hurt himself bad enough to admit he needed to go to the hospital. To leave work. This is Warin we're talking about, here. Just about anyone else, and I wouldn't be this worried. But Warin has to be practically hammered over the head before he'll call in, or before he'll leave work.

-worry- -fretfretfret- -fidget-

I will be fine once he gets home and I can see for myself. Really, I will be.

I've been somewhat at a loss as to what I should be posting. I have this vague urge to update, so that folks know what's going in my life and all that. And then I realize that right now, we're at that last little stage of settling into the apartment. There's just one corner of stuff left that needs to get looked through, we've sorted out a cleaning schedule (of sorts, we seem more to have slid into one than hashed one out), warinbear goes to work in the afternoons, louisadkins and I will start going through his comics collection tomorrow, we play WoW together . . .

Life has settled down. I want a house someday, once we've got the money saved up for it. I'm working on getting Sadie trained the rest of the way, and not feeling particularly charitable to whomever first trained her. (Housebroken: Hell, yes. Trained to heel: Hell, no. Terrified of men with long sleeves and ball caps: Fucking hell yes. If I ever get my hands on the bastard, there's going to be a lot of yelling involved. Possibly a rolled-up newspaper.)

I have my own computer and desk, now. Tax return this year went to it when we realized that, in order to avoid potential for conflict, we were going to need to have one computer per person. And all three of them needed to have WoW on them. We've been spending time together playing WoW mostly. We're part of a guild on one server, and formed one on another. Bloodstrike Clan of Akama says: "Eat more chicken!" Starcrest is the guild that we created on Smolderthorn, mostly for the purpose of not being constantly invited to such guilds as, "LEETHAKKORZ" or "TwinksRUs". I want to let Starcrest expand at it's own pace, and get known for showing up whenever someone's having problems with high-levels ganking lowbies. The basic idea will be that we're laid-back and not high-commitment. We're there to help, both guildmates and other folks.

Huh. Pretty much described both guilds, right there. I've been creating characters on RP servers, and I'm finding that I very much enjoy the atmosphere. I'm not going to give up my characters on the PvP servers, but I'm not going to create any new characers on them, either. I think my favourite RP character is currently the Troll hunter. Such a very relaxed and laid-back take on life, and I love 'speaking' in a Carribiean accent.

It ocurs to me that most of my update content is likely to be WoW related for a while. The game world has been designed so well that it really feels like exploring another world. I could easily role-play any of the character that I've created, because the world that they've been created in is so alive.

It is also most of what I've been doing of late. Well, that and reading. And spending time with my guys.

Or little snapsshots of life. Like the fact that Stavan is up on his hind legs, fore legs planted on the arm of Louis's computer chair, meowing his squeaky meow. He's headbutting Louis's left hand and arm. In another few seconds, Louis will reach down and pet and rub and skritch, and Stavan will go into an frenzy of purring and twining and rubbing. They've developed this little ritual over the past month or so, just like Sadie has taken to curling up in the footspace under my desk. Every so often, she'll reach up with her paw and pull my foot down to lick and rub her head against.

-happysigh- Must update more often. It's nice to dwell on those little snapshots, the little moments of peace and joy. It's good for me, too.

I probably should have posted this yesterday, but it got lost in the shuffle of errands and a nasty headache.

Warin's mom has found out about the move. Chances are that the loan payment that we sent is what did it, seeing as the return address had all 3 of our names and the new address on it. No, she hasn't talkied to Warin about it at all; why on earth would dhe talk to him first? I'm feeling squirmy enough about revealing folks that I'll let our source (okay, so I've always wanted to say that) reveal hirself at hir choice.

This is a heads up that drama and attempts at "divide and conquer" tactics are likely to be a'comin' from Huntsville. Knowing that woman, they're likely to be aimed square at the kids.

Why couldn't she be more like Catchild's mom? Huh? Or like Louis's mom? Hell, is basic human decency too much to ask for?

Please, let me be making the wrong call on her behaviour. Please. Please be wrong, please be wrong . . .

. . . Acht jaaren lang/Ging ik naar school

And we are back online! (Extreme major brownie points to anybody that recognizes the song the above lyrics came from.)

We are also (mostly) moved in. I say mostly because we are still unpacking boxes. However, we have most of our floorspace available to us, the furniture is situated, and we are down to the process of sorting and shelving the rest.

Of course, we're going to need to build some of those shelves, but that's just a minor hitch. Sadie is settling in, and seems to have decided that Louis's computer area is her curl up spot. She is also very interested in all the new smells along the side of the apartment building. Once we clear a path through the utility room to the litter-boxes, we will be toting cat-carriers out to Sanctuary to corral Stavan and Drake.

BTW folks, if Dragon wants the picture above what is now his room, he can keep it. I think he'd like it more than I do.

Catchild, Drkn, you will probably want to check your e-mail before reading further.

louisadkins, warinbear, and myself are going to be moving into an apartment in the area in the very near future. We will be (all of us) working on keeping the friendships that exist.

However, at this juncture, the three of us have decided that this is simply not going to work.

My only request of the readership (gods, that sounds pretentious!) is that they remember that we are all hurting over this, and that Warin's mother not be informed. Or his grandparents, as that would likely amount to the same thing. I apologize if this comes across as asking you to keep secrets, as that is not my intent. We simply do not need Warin's mother lunging in on us in an attempt to get access to the children. That, and we are not asking anyone to 'pick sides'.

If you have prayers or Good Thoughts to spare, I would ask that the children get first dibs.

Naomi/Astrid/Kayla

Got an e-mail from my Opa today. He doesn't sound like he's doing okay. -sigh- Oma was the center that his universe turned on, and I don't think he's ever going to really recover from loosing her.

His e-mail also included the information that my Uncle Steve had been mmurdered, but no other details. Google is a wonderful tool. I just found the article at pressofatlanticcity.com.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/atlantic/story/5692221p-5709815c.html

With what I knew of my uncle, I was honestly excpecting his murder to involve drugs, or an argument with a dealer. I wasn't excpecting what I found. From the information at the end of the article, my uncle finally, finally managed to get onto the wagon and stay there. The last I heard of him, his store was failing because he wasn't really taking care of it. The article describes a man who was hardworking and stable.

Godsdamnit. He made it. He finally fucking managed to get his feet under him, and then someone decides that a knife will solve all their problems.

I'm getting very tired of loosing family.

The past month has been stressful in the extreme. I most likely follow catchild in creating a multiples filter, if that tells you anything about what the past month has been like.

Letting folks know that I'm okay and everything. The family is dealing with some major changes and growth stuff, so we're all kind of internally focused right now. LJ sort of slid by the wayside for a while.

Someone please wake me up when the shit is out of the way. Or when I can help. Or when Drkn has actually gotten enough sleep. Or when Phooka will let me hold her and cuddle her.

-sigh- My ability to care about anything other than basic survival is incredibly just now. I'm very tired, and I am probably going to carefully forget most of what Drkn was saying this evening, simply because I know that he hasn't really been sleeping all that much for the past two weeks, and that makes his temper fly away into the stratosphere.

I am going to go do meaningless stuff on the computer now.